In a move that will resonate anyone who’s been squeezed into an airplane seat by an obese neighbor, Venice’s gondoliers have called time on that they see as a wave of overweight visitors that endangers both boats and passengers—and gondoliers.
Because of increasing numbers of heavy passengers, the official capacity has been reduced from six to five passengers for the smaller ‘gondola da nolo’ that offers tours of the canal city and from 14 to 12 for the larger ‘gondola da parade,’ the sort that serve as cross-canal traghetti.
Andrea Balbi, president of the gondoliers association, told the Guardian (UK) that “It’s true that compared to 10 or 15 years ago, tourists weigh a bit more. “Unlike in a lift, where there’s a message that says ‘only six people or a maximum weight’, we don’t have scales to weigh people, and so we reduced the number of passengers.”
In a less-polite assessment, the president of the association of substitute gondoliers (yes, that’s a thing) told La Repubblica that “Tourists are now overweight. From some countries, bombs load. And when fully loaded, the hull sinks and water enters. Advancing with over half a tonne of meat on board is dangerous.”
There’s also another change to Venice’s gondola rules; in a move to keep the trade in traditional hands and freeze out possible outsiders, rules have been changed to allow gondoliers to pass their licenses on to their children without their having to take a theory exam on history and foreign languages. Now, if your father is a gondolier, all you’ll need to show is four years experience on the family’s boat.
